


A Staccato Symphony of Loss

by SickSadWorldLady



Category: Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: Adult Content, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-03
Updated: 2014-12-03
Packaged: 2018-02-27 23:45:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2711126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SickSadWorldLady/pseuds/SickSadWorldLady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"This is so completely out of her element. There’s no revenge to be sought or justice served. Nothing. She can do nothing. He can do nothing. They have nothing to fight against. Band them together or tear them apart in hatred."</p><p>Veronica mourns a loss she didn't know she wanted.</p><p>Note: Difficult subject matter. Nothing too graphic, but definitely adult and heavy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Staccato Symphony of Loss

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't sure I wanted to write this, mostly because I just wrote a story about a Veronica/Logan pregnancy, but I thought this article (https://medium.com/the-archipelago/miscarriage-is-normal-and-normal-hurts-58f9463fe68a) made an excellent point about how miscarriages are routinely ignored in pop culture despite being incredibly common. So I decided to write about one because I tend to write to try and understand and to learn. 
> 
> This, in my head takes place after the book, but it's really fairly vague (minus a few mentions of the Navy) because it could happen anytime.

She already knows what’s happening. She can use everything in her arsenal--feeling the very real pain, intuiting what her body is telling her, analyzing what it means--to tell her brain the facts. What she can’t do is process and compartmentalize it.

 

Somewhere in the recesses of her mind she thinks she should be happy. But she’s not. That she should be relieved. But she’s not.

 

Sad. Lonely. Uncomfortable. Lacking control. That’s what she is.

 

So she stares below her catatonically, focusing on just not letting the physical pain get to her.

 

\--

 

Logan should know, she thinks to herself. Or should he? What difference does it make at this point? There’s nothing either of them can do about it and Logan has never been one to handle situations over which he has no control well.

 

If she wants, he never has to know about any of it. He can be blissfully ignorant even if she can’t.

 

What’s the mature thing to do Veronica? Is it honesty or is that selfish?

 

\--

 

Normal. That’s what the doctor told her. It was normal. What happened was normal. What she’s feeling is normal.

 

She feels anything but normal.

 

You can try again the doctor says. It takes a lot of willpower not to laugh. Try? You think she tried for this, she wants to spit out. She spent the better part of a decade praying for anything but this.

 

Now though, she wishes she’d prayed a little less.

 

\--

 

“Hey bobcat.” Right then she knows she has to tell him because frankly he’ll know something is up anyways. She’s a split second away from losing it.

 

“I need to tell you something.” She whispers. Not daring to make eye contact with the screen.

  
  


All of a sudden flood gates.

 

“Veronica, hey, what’s wrong?” When she finally works the nerve to look up he’s shaking. Terror-stricken and panicked. She thinks he might attempt to test the limits of physics and try to touch her through the screen.

 

He probably thinks she’s dying. What will he think when he’s knows the truth.

 

Shit. She doesn’t want to tell him. Doesn’t want to know what his response will be. What part will he react to? How does she even want him to react?

 

Is there a lie at the ready she can use?

 

He asks again, growing increasingly more manic.

 

No more tears. Instead she recoils, dry and heaving. The fog she’s been in for three days cuts her off. She can’t think of anything but the truth. No lies this time.

 

“I had a miscarriage.” If she thought he’d get it she would have used even less words.

 

“What?” It’s a rhetorical question. She knows this. A reaction of his mouth before his brain. She answers regardless.

 

“I was pregnant. Now I’m not. Standard dictionary definition. I can send you a WebMD link though if you’d like to know more.”

 

“You mean you were… we were going to… I was...” He doesn’t finish any of his sentences. The fragments are punctuation enough.

 

“Yes.” Quips float through her. She’s too tired to voice them though.

 

“Did you want to…” Another unfinished sentence. Keep it. It’s right there on his tongue. He just can’t say it. She knows it will make her feel worse if he does. Yet it’s what wants.

 

So she waits.

 

He stares.

 

Finally, “... keep it?”

 

She thinks she can talk, but it’s tough.

 

“I wasn’t sure. Doesn’t matter now.”

 

He nods. Bites his lip. Probably contemplating the nearest escape hatch.

 

She thinks maybe this is the fewest words they’ve spoken to each other. This is so completely out of her element. There’s no revenge to be sought or justice served. Nothing. She can do nothing. He can do nothing. They have nothing to fight against. Band them together or tear them apart in hatred. Only her body, maybe. The doctor said that wasn’t it either. It happens. It’s normal. It just wasn’t the right timing. A microcosm of their relationship really.

 

“Veronica.” It’s just a statement. A fishing line to ensure she’s still there.

 

“What?” More energy would make that venomous. Instead it’s just flat.

 

“Are you ok?”

 

Does she look ok to him?

 

“I’ll survive.”

 

“That’s not what I asked.” Anger rises in his voice like bile and he fights to keep it down.

 

“No.” They’re coming and she can’t stop them anymore. “I spent three days having my body rip me to shreds. And when it took a breather my mind jumped in.”

 

Feelings. For the first time since that first fatal red drop she’s talking about them.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“Are you?”

 

More anger. “Veronica I never want to see you hurt. Never. Fuck. Do you really not know that by now?”

 

“Yeah but now you’re off the hook.”

 

She’s right. Bingo bango. What’s her prize?

 

“I can feel more than one thing.”

 

Gutted. That’s how she feels. Gutted. Exhausted. Alone.

 

He studies her. She does everything in her power not to let him.

 

“You’re right.” He doesn’t say more for a second. This staccato symphony. Broken. Choppy. Halting. “I don’t want to be a father. I don’t know if I’ll ever want to be a father. Look at us Veronica. We have three shitty parents out of four. Those odds fucking suck for a future generation.”

 

Another wave. Sadness. Anger. Loss.

 

“Lucky for you then my body saved you the trouble.”

 

“What do you want from me?” Anger has been replaced by misery. Fear too. Fragility.

 

She can’t answer. She doesn’t know.

 

“I want to make this better.”

 

A smile, sad and wry, lifts on her lips. “You can’t.”

 

“Can you try talking to me?”

 

“It won’t change anything. It’s happened. It’s gone. You’re home free.”

 

“Fuck you.” He startles himself with his proclamation.

 

“Funny, I believe that’s how we got here.” Her eyes focus and for the first time in a three days she’s alive. Furious. Alive though.

 

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

 

He’s desperate and pleading. Cat scratching his way out of the well.

 

“To quote you back to you, ‘Fuck you.’”

 

“I have five minutes. This is really how you want to leave things?”

 

Anger. Despondence. Fear. They flow between them so easily. Back into old patterns.

 

“What do you think five minutes is going to change?”

 

“I need you to not hate me. I need you to stop looking at me like you did when...” When she thought he might have raped her. When she thought he might have killed Lilly. When he slept with Madison. When he beat Piz to a pulp. Choose a hate-driven, disappointed-but-expecting it look Logan. The chest was full.

 

“Well I need a lot of things Logan. Sorry, you can’t always get what you want.”

 

Military timing. In four minutes this conversation will end. Another thing they get no say in. She’s unsure if she’s grateful for this or not.

 

“I believe the Stones followed up that sentiment. If you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.”

 

Impossible. She was certain there was nothing left to expunge. And yet.

 

Tears. More of them.

 

“What I need is you. So sorry again, Mick Jagger was wrong.”

 

Exhale. It’s audible even through the crappy Skype connection.

 

“I need you too.” Cracks knife through his voice. “Do you know how badly I want to be next to you right now. I want to scream and yell and punch something like I haven’t in probably five years. I want to hold you. To bring you soup or whatever it is you fucking eat in situations like this. I don’t even know.”

 

 _Right, but you can’t,_ she thinks. _You get to go live your life never feeling like something died inside you. You want to protect me. Help me. Well I couldn’t protect it. Why do you get to be successful._

 

Irrationality is her best friend now.

 

Three minutes. She still hasn’t responded out loud.

 

“Please let me help you.” And because it’s him, she speaks.

 

“But I couldn’t help it. It.” She chortled coldly. “I don’t even know if it was a boy or a girl.”

 

“This isn’t your fault.”

 

“So I’ve been told.”

 

“Veronica?”

 

Tick tock two minutes tops.

 

“I love you.”

 

She knew that already. Despite everything. She knew that.

 

“You know it’s silly.” She starts to respond. Pauses momentarily. Gauging whether she has the strength. “I think I loved it.”

 

“That’s not silly at all.”

 

“I barely even got to know it. At first I didn’t even want it. I found out and a week later it was gone. But still.” Another army of tears cries out for an escape route, but she thwarts them anyways. “I think I loved it.”

 

“I would have too, you know. I wouldn’t have been happy. I’d have been scared and angry and confused. And yeah, initially I probably wouldn’t have wanted it. But I would have eventually loved it. I promise you I would have.”

 

One last minute.

 

“We can talk about this when I’m home in a week.” She’d almost forgotten he wasn’t gone for good. That this was temporary. A training mission. “If you want we can talk about the future. Having a kid.” He smiles at her. Unsteady. Hiding a lie in his truth.

 

“I just wanted it.” Sincerely. She doesn’t know if she wants to try, if she wants to actually plan something out, consult tests and charts. Doesn’t know if she wants to be a mom, or to watch Logan as a dad. She just knows that she wants it now. The thing she can’t have anymore. Maybe it’s guilt for not wanting it enough before, but that’s how she feels. She isn’t sure she wants a kid in the future, but she wants it back.

 

“I know you did bobcat. I know.”

 

“I’ll be alright.” Probably. Eventually. She’s not now, but she’s Veronica Mars. She always is.

 

“I know that too.” For the first time he smiles at her. Genuinely smiles. “You always are. A ship full of Navy men and women, and you, Veronica Mars, are the toughest person I know.”

 

“Duh.”

 

“There’s a twenty in the nightstand. Chunky Monkey. Full fat. And Veronica?”

 

“Yeah.” Her brain had moved to full sentences but her voice box was a little far behind.

 

“Pussycat, pussycat, I love you, yes I do.” He purrs as he sings and she laughs for the first time in 72 hours. 

 

\--

 

Better. She felt better. She didn’t feel good though. There was still something missing inside her that had been there a few days ago and she couldn’t let go. Not yet. She wasn’t even entirely sure what she was mourning, just this loss, this being that implanted itself inside her for a little more than a week. This feeling that she had failed. 

 

So she picks up the phone. There’s only one person she can call to talk about it with. To discuss losing a child. Failing a child.

  
“Lianne... Mom.”


End file.
